Prosecutor Kristina Montgomery said the undercover officer went to a flat in Nuneaton and asked Rowbotham if he could sort him out with some heroin. Rowbotham sold him the drug for #20 - and did the same the next day.

When he was arrested he said he had a #20-a-day heroin habit which he paid for from his #250 a week wages as a chef at a Nuneaton pub.

Matthew Barnes, defending, said: "The court can be quite satisfied the offence would not have happened if the officer had not been there asking for them.

"The officer was portraying himself as a man from the North who was out of the area and was addicted to drugs and needed them urgently. Rowbotham agreed to help him."

But Judge Richard Cole said: "The police were perfectly entitled to act in the way they did to strike at the evils of heroin dealing."